24th December - Advent Photo and Yesterday

First of all Must remember to say hello and welcome to follower number 650 - that's a good round number to finish the year with I reckon.

Oh Goody, we in Suffolk and Norfolk have now jumped from Tier 2 to Tier 4 from Boxing Day, which is lock-down in all but name and something I predicted the other day and I'm not at all surprised after hearing how many Covid cases are being treated in Ipswich hospital. Plus another new variant has got here from South Africa...as well as that which seems to have started in Kent. It's not ending anytime soon is it?

Did it rain where you were yesterday? It certainly did here..........most of the day...... heavy rain - really nasty. The water in the ditch across the lane is as high as I've ever seen it, and a few weeks ago I reassured the people buying this house that it never floods over into the lane, now I'm not so sure!

 By the time I got to the Greengrocers just after 9 yesterday all the sprout stalks had sold - everybody must have had the same idea, so I got some loose - they looked fresh so that's OK. And to make a change I got a bag of their mixed colour carrots -that will puzzle BiL tomorrow - bet he's never seen a purple carrot!

I'm not a huge fan of cookery programmes but I watched Jamie Oliver  doing some Christmassy stuff  and liked the look of his roasted squash 'sausage rolls'. Unfortunately I didn't write down what ingredients he used, wonder if it's online anywhere - I shall do a search. Later there was a Wartime Christmas programme, first of three in a new series and at the opposite end of the scale "Christmas at Chatsworth" was very decorative.

Today I'm going to get the pigs in blankets prepped - my favourite bit of Christmas dinner, yummy with a honey and mustard glaze, the bread-sauce made - that's youngest daughter's favourite bit of dinner,  and get as many other jobs done before my visitors tomorrow. Strictly legal visitors I hasten to add- an odd thing to say but there you go. 

Back to  the books................

And the last of  this years Photos in Advent, a couple of old favourites. Two of my Miss Read (Dora Saint) collection. Both these books are made up of either her other very slim titles (No Holly for Miss Quinn and The White Robin) or extracts from her Fairacre or Thrush Green books.

A friend  used to read these every year at Christmas to get her in the right mood, perhaps she still does. I've not read them for ages and only thought of them when I was searching the shelves for something for this last day of advent post.

 I love these gentle stories of the 1950's and 60's villages and villagers. Her 2 room primary school is just the same as the 2 room school I went to but we didn't have such a wonderful head teacher as Miss Read. 

I started reading them when I first worked in the library and she carried on writing one a year until the 1990s. Over many years I gradually found all of them in charity shops to read again, although they've rarely been out of print since and are probably still around to buy now.

 

Back  Briefly  Tomorrow

Sue